Here is an easy way to paint letters on wood and make it look professional. I'm fascinated with how well this turned out and I used readily available materials. I did use a printer to print out the phrase I wanted. This was inspired by Kim Six Fix's wooden lighted Christmas sign.





First I asked my son-in-law for some of his pallet wood which he had all cut up and ready to go.

My nephew, Mike, helped me with the carpentry part of this project. I used some scrap wood for use in keeping all the pallet wood slats together.


We used Liquid Nails along with regular nails to hold all the pallet wood together.


It is solidly put together, believe me. We let it dry overnight.


I painted the wood a light gray acrylic paint which I mixed myself from white and black acrylic paint. I then added some "land" on the bottom of the pallet as pictured. I made a hill much lighter than the black by adding a little white acrylic paint to give the illusion that the hill was further away. I wanted to give the impression that the kings are closer and they are traveling, following a star, to a far away place.


I printed out a creche scene and cut it out.


and placed it on the top of the far away hill. I traced around the figures.


 and filled them in with a lighter color again to give the impression of being far away.


The lettering was surprisingly easy. I printed out the words I wanted. I had to enlarge them a few times because they weren't bit enough at first.

I drew 2 lines with pencil for the letters to sit on so that the words would be straight.

On the back of the letters I rubbed soft pencil to act as a transfer paper. I then put the printed out words where I wanted them on the pallet and pressed a pencil on top of the letters to transfer the letters to the wood.


This method leaves a light outline of the letters. I filled them in with pencil so I could see how it would look.


I then filled in the letters with a dark gray acrylic paint with a small brush. It went very easily, as you can see.


I found that this gray color was too light so I did have to paint over the letters twice, once with this light gray and again with a darker gray, almost black color.


I printed out some graphics of kings riding camels in silhouette and cut them out. I traced around them.


I darkened the letters and painted the kings and camels black.


Here it is on my mantel. I'm so thrilled with how this turned out.

Oh, the star? It was a star ornament I made a few years ago. I glued it over the creche figures.



I'm sorry to be posting a Christmas post when it is January 4th, but time got away from me and I thought it would still be useful to show how hand lettering can be easy and effective. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. It was an awesome and fun project for me. Thanks to my nephew, Mike, for helping me with the carpentry part of this project!!

Now to think about a nice word phrase for Spring! :)

Best wishes for an awesome 2016!!